


you can hear it in the silence

by vaguelypessimistic



Series: creature of habit [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Background Zack/Aerith, F/M, Self-indulgent fluff, flower shop au, ostensibly anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:40:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26149591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaguelypessimistic/pseuds/vaguelypessimistic
Summary: It was a casual enough statement, but Cloud sensed a weight to the words. He had a feeling there might be more to this than him just dropping off some bandages and leaving.Or, Cloud resolved to talk to Tifa about the night before, and realised that he maybe didn't have to say anything at all.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Series: creature of habit [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1898899
Comments: 16
Kudos: 97





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this au is very close to my heart. the second half of this fic makes up for the rating, which i will upload when i can stop agonising over it. this is essentially just pure, almost plotless fluff. the best kind.
> 
> i really hope you enjoy it!

Cloud blinked to make his eyes adjust to the neon-speckled darkness of Wall Market from the fluorescents of the gym and slipped down his usual route of sketchy back alleys to exit the market out towards Sector 7. The clatter of weights from the gym turned into the buzz of debauchery of Wall Market to the quiet of the dusty path connecting Sectors 6 and 7. Only when he could hear his own thoughts once more could Cloud breathe again.

Escaping Wall Market unscathed was a time-perfected art form. Cloud avoided petty criminals, drunken revellers, and promoters trying to stuff bar coupons into his hands with the same tactics: face set into a scowl, walk quickly, and avoid eye contact.

He might once have scuffled with a group of bandits who shoved at him, trying to get his attention so they could beat him senseless and rob him. It was a fight they’d lose, but they were too stupid to realise that. Now, he was an old man, Cloud thought with a roll of his eyes. Being mature and avoiding fights and shit.

The music and shouting from Wall Market faded into nothingness as Cloud walked, a light rain cooling his sweat-slicked skin as he trudged along the pathway lit by unreliable streetlamps; flickering in some places and dead altogether in others. His walk would be without incident. It was too early for bandits or drunks to try to hassle him but also late enough that the general foot traffic of ordinary people had long since disappeared under the cover of darkness. Ideal, really.

Still, with the absence of Reno to punch or classes to teach at the gym, Cloud’s mind wandered. To Tifa, as usual; he’d thought of little else since they kissed the night before and they’d spent a few golden, stolen hours in his apartment before she bade him goodnight.

Cloud had felt a little bit hollow as he watched her receding back cross Sector 7 to her apartment, despite his protests about walking her home. The now-familiar warmth in his chest that bloomed from her presence followed her into the night. 

They hadn’t talked about it. They were _something,_ sure, but what? He’d been too distracted to even think of it until she left. Then he took a long, late-night walk to agonise over it when sleep evaded him. Cloud had only turned back when the artificial sun lamps flickered to life, at which point he'd sprinted back to his apartment and substituted a good night's sleep with a strong cup of coffee and headed straight to the gym.

It was one thing to dwell on her during a quiet moment in the middle of his busy day before something else came up and he shoved the thoughts into a box in his mind - sure, a box with a broken lock that refused to stay shut - but he couldn’t push it aside now. He couldn’t hide from it. From _her._ Cloud was walking straight towards her and he was still no closer to a decision about what the hell he was going to do next.

The light rain turned heavier and so Cloud’s slow walk turned into a light jog. He broke out into a near-sprint at the outskirts of Sector 7, ducking and weaving in and out of people mindless of their protests. 

He slowed just outside of Seventh Heaven, his skin hot and cold from a mix of sweat and rain. Laughter, chatter and music drifted through the doors and his hand clenched around one of the door handles. 

Self-consciousness prickled at Cloud’s skin and he released the door handle to peer through the window, casting his face in the warm light of the bar.

Wedge was behind the bar, cleaning a glass. Tifa must not be working.

Cloud swore under his breath and turned on his heel back towards Gainsborough Flowers next door. The tinkle of the bell above the door announced his presence.

“Cloud!”

“Hey, Cloud!”

He blinked. Zack had a violet tucked behind one ear while he grinned and waved at him, leaning against the counter. Behind him, Aerith was intent on weaving a string of flowers together, with a small pile of yellow and white blooms next to her interspersed with some glossy dark green leaves.

Cloud sighed, long-suffering. “I’m gonna go shower,” he said in lieu of a greeting and slipped upstairs to his apartment away from their prying eyes. 

He showered and wolfed down a sandwich stuffed with the sad remnants of the contents of his fridge. Cloud collapsed in a sore heap of screaming muscles across the length of his sofa, throwing his arm over his eyes to block out the harsh light of the single lightbulb hanging on the ceiling above him, and fell into a restless doze.

_Tap. Tap._

Cloud rolled onto his side.

The tapping grew more insistent. _Tap. Tap, tap, tap._

He roused enough to register the noise as someone knocking on his apartment door. Cloud groaned and cracked open an eye to glare at the source of the noise. “Yeah?” he mumbled, propping himself up on his elbows.

Zack poked his head around the door. “Hey, can I come in?” he asked. Even as he spoke, he was crossing the room to help himself to half a packet of snacks left open on Cloud’s kitchen countertop. 

“Can I stop you?” Cloud asked. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“Nah, not really,” Zack conceded. He flopped down on the other end of the sofa to Cloud, drawing a groan of protest from the battered thing’s creaky springs, and offered the feeble few snacks in the bottom of the packet to Cloud. “Aerith sent me up here to get out of her hair. She’s got a meeting about a party or something downstairs. Apparently I’m a distraction.”

Cloud arched an eyebrow, his gaze sticking on the violet still tucked behind Zack’s hair and the crumbs around the corners of his mouth. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Zack echoed, apparently none the wiser, through a muffled mouthful of snacks.

He rolled his eyes. “Nice flower, by the way.”

Zack grinned at him. “It brings out my eyes. I look pretty, c’mon, man. You know it.”

Cloud scoffed. “Sure,” he said, taking the packet of Crunchy Chocobo Curls from Zack. As he fished around for chips, he asked, “Is it not kinda late for a meeting?”

“Usually, yeah,” Zack agreed. “But y’know how things go sometimes. Aerith and Tifa have both been hired for the same party so they’re comparing notes or something. And Tifa works weird hours with the bar, so I guess this is her break, right?”

Cloud’s hand closed around the chip he’d been holding, crushing it between his fingertips. His heart lurched. “Tifa’s downstairs?” he asked. There was scarcely any point in trying to keep his tone light.

Zack saw right through him. As expected. “Thought that’d get your attention,” he said. He leant back against the back of the sofa, looking pleased with himself. “You gonna tell me what’s up with you two, then? ‘Cause it’d take a blind chocobo to not see anything happening.” He fixed Cloud with a look that could guilt a guard dog into lying down and letting him pass - or, more commonly, guilt information out of Cloud.

Cloud scowled and averted his gaze. No grown man should have such an effective pair of puppy-dog eyes. “Nothing’s up,” he mumbled.

Cloud had built up a resistance to Aerith’s _looks,_ but with Zack? He was probably wasting his time. And, like a dog, Zack would continue nosing for information until he got what he wanted.

Or got distracted. Cloud tossed the TV remote and the half-empty packet of snacks towards Zack. 

It was effective. Zack paused, giving Cloud one last considering look, then shrugged and turned his attention to the TV.

Cloud exhaled and let his head flop back against the back of the sofa. He was safe for now. 

What could he even say to Zack, anyway? _He_ didn’t know what was going on with him and Tifa. 

* * *

As easily as Zack was dissuaded, Cloud should have expected much worse from Aerith.

By the time she drifted up to Cloud’s apartment, they’d changed from just TV to playing video games. And doing a terrible job of it, too. Cloud sat back against the back of the sofa as Zack’s character killed him with friendly fire for the third time in half an hour.

Something soft fell on top of his head, sitting around the tousled spikes of his hair. Cloud raised a hand up, feeling soft flower petals underneath his fingertips. He suppressed a smile and let it be as Aerith perched on the arm of the sofa next to him.

“You look pretty,” she chirped. 

“Thanks,” Cloud mumbled. His ears felt hot. The game reloaded and Cloud turned his attention back to it.

Aerith’s tone was far too light to be innocuous when she said, “So Tifa came round just now.”

Cloud stiffened. “Zack said.”

“Mhm. She asked about you, y’know.”

His grip tightened on the controller. His finger twitched at the wrong moment and a burst of gunfire shot clean through Zack’s character, with the pixels’ dying groan echoed in Zack’s cry of protest. 

“C’mon, man!”

“You’ve done it to me three times now.”

Zack huffed. “Fair enough, but you didn’t need to go out for vengeance. Damn. We’re a team.”

Aerith prodded Cloud’s shoulder as the game reloaded again. “She just asked how you were ‘cause she hadn’t seen you, was all. She was just checking you were okay. You know how Tifa is.”

“Oh.”

“You gonna tell me what’s up?” Aerith asked. That tone was back. Too innocent. She leant in closer to him, like a kid sharing a secret.

“Nothing’s up.” Too quick. The words almost tripped over themselves. 

Aerith paused. Cloud could _feel_ the look she was giving him. “You’re a really bad liar, y’know, Cloud,” she said at last.

“Not lying,” he mumbled, ducking his head. The flowers slipped down over his forehead.

Aerith made a soft, unconvinced noise. “Sure you’re not,” she said, her tone light, with her knowing smile audible in her voice. Damn her.

* * *

Zack and Aerith left Cloud’s apartment to cross the hall not long after the guys’ fifth consecutive defeat in the boss fight they’d been trying to clear for upwards of three days. Zack had told Cloud to stop keeping count of how long it’d been, saying it was demoralising. Aerith, on the contrary, was more than happy to remind them.

Zack had given Cloud another one of his _looks_ over Aerith’s shoulder as they left. 

Cloud knew what that look meant. Maybe. To get his shit together and go to talk to Tifa, he supposed. 

Hours ticked by. The TV that he’d turned on for some background noise hummed away in the background and Cloud drummed his fingers on the leather arm of the sofa. _Tap, tap._

Tifa _was_ working. _Tap, tap._ Cloud just didn’t see her earlier. _Tap._

Should he _go_ and see her? _Tap. Tap. Tap._

Cloud groaned. His head fell back against the back of the sofa. He’d gotten halfway to his apartment door and turned back on his heel twice in as many hours during his silent debate with his own subconscious. His apartment felt too small; too stuffy, despite him flinging open the windows hours earlier. The sticky summer heat threatened to choke him while his thoughts raced through his mind.

In the end, something else made the decision for him. His phone buzzed on the coffee table beside the discarded flower crown.

**Jessie Rasberry:** hey bb have u got any gauze or bandages

**Cloud Strife:** Whatve you done this time

**Jessie Rasberry:** dont u worry abt that. just bring the goods to the bar 

**Jessie Rasberry:** :*

Cloud sighed. He grabbed his first aid kit from his otherwise bare kitchen cupboards, shoving his phone and keys into his pocket, and took the stairs two at a time until he left out of the front door of the shop.

For the second time that evening, Cloud found himself hesitating outside of the doors of Seventh Heaven. Now, though, the music was off and the patrons of the bar had left for the evening. The time of night when a peaceful quiet blanketed Sector 7. He steeled himself. He was a grown man. So why did he still feel like a nervous teenager?

Cloud paid for his self-doubt as the door swung open, narrowly avoiding hitting him in the face.

Wedge barrelled out of the doors and skidded to a stop when he spotted Cloud. “Oh, shit, bro, I didn’t see you there!” he exclaimed. 

“No shit,” Cloud muttered, no more than his pride wounded but his feathers ruffled nonetheless. 

“Hey, the bar’s closed, bro. You’re kinda late for a drink but I bet Tifa would- '' His eyes fell on the first aid kit in Cloud’s hand and realisation seemed to dawn on him. “Oh, right, Jessie texted you. You just missed her. It’s nothing Tifa hasn’t dealt with before, but we were out of gauze. S’nothing major, y’know? Tifa’ll bounce back in no time; she always does.”

“Sure,” Cloud agreed vaguely.

Wedge clapped him on the shoulder. “Anyway, I gotta head. Nice seeing you, bro. Sorry about your face. Night!” 

Cloud blinked at Wedge’s receding back as his brain caught up with him. Something about Tifa’s coworkers always left him reeling. 

The bar door creaking open, slower, roused him from his stupor. Cloud’s breath caught and his heart dropped into his stomach when Tifa peered out at him, tired and beautiful, backlit in the warm light of the bar.

“Cloud, hey,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you.” It was a casual enough statement, but Cloud sensed a weight to the words. He had a feeling there might be more to this than him just dropping off some bandages and leaving.

His brain came back to life enough to make his hand hold up the first aid kit for her to see. “Jessie texted,” he said.

Tifa sighed and stepped away from the bar door to let him inside. “C’mon in. I told her she was overreacting. You want a drink?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Cloud said, taking a seat at the bar. “What happened?”

Tifa poured him a glass of ice water anyway. “Nothing unusual. Some guys got a bit too rowdy and handsy so I asked them to leave. They, uh, protested. I had to kick them out.”

“Stupid of them,” Cloud remarked.

Tifa hummed a two-tone agreement. “Exactly. Anyway, it escalated a bit, but I’m fine!” As she spoke, her right hand came up to rest on the bar as she leant in. Blood pricked the edges of the scrapes on her knuckles, shadowed with the beginnings of bruising.

Cloud grabbed her hand without thinking to examine the cuts. “Tifa, these need cleaning,” he said, reaching for the first aid kit with his free hand. 

“They’re really not that bad,” Tifa insisted. “I just didn’t have time to put my gloves on, was all. It all happened so fast. They’ll heal up in a day or two.”

“Not if you don’t look after them,” Cloud said. “You wanna punch tomorrow morning during your shift when they’re like this?”

Tifa’s hand flexed in his, as if recoiling a twitch. “You don’t have to,” she protested. 

“I know.” He caught her gaze and held it.

Tifa must have seen something in his eyes because the fight drained out of her with the slump of her shoulders and a soft exhale. “All right. Fine. Thanks, Cloud.”

He worked quickly, well-versed in caring for this nature of injury from his years of shifts at the gym and the odd jobs around Midgar gone wrong before he learnt to defend himself. Cloud murmured an apology when Tifa hissed through her teeth at the sharp sting of antiseptic against the raw, open wounds.

She caught his wrist just as he reached for the bandages. “They need to breathe,” she said. “Thank you, Cloud.”

“No problem,” he mumbled. The moment had passed. He fixated on packing away the first aid kid with unrivalled intensity, unable to meet Tifa’s gaze now he’d registered just how _close_ they were again.

_Stupid,_ he thought. They’d already kissed. What was he so afraid of now?

Tifa, ever-patient, didn’t push a _talk_ and just talked instead. Time passed by in companionable silence, interspersed with quiet chatter about menial things - the bar, the gym, Zack, Aerith. Familiar. Comfortable. 

Cloud relaxed.

Tifa poured herself a glass of the ice water, pressing the backs of her hands to the cool glass. When she took a long drink, a drop of condensation trailed over the curve of her chin and down the length of her throat. An idle thought drifted by of kissing it from her pale skin-

He stood up, the stool scraping against the wooden floor, and picked up his and Tifa’s now empty glasses. 

“It’s okay, Cloud,” Tifa interrupted. “The dishwasher is off for the night. Just leave them by the sink; I’ll get to them in the morning.”

Cloud nodded his assent and slipped through to the back room of the bar, setting them aside as instructed. When he turned around, Tifa was leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest and a twitch of a smile at the corners of her mouth.

“Thanks for coming by, Cloud,” she said.

_It’s okay._

He swallowed. “No problem,” he replied. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded lower. Rougher. 

Tifa pushed off from the doorframe. She crossed the distance between them in a few mere steps, leaning up to face him properly. She made no further effort to move. Waiting. Asking. 

As if she ever needed to ask anything from him. Gods. 

_It’s okay._

Cloud leant in, cupping Tifa’s cheek with one hand and winding his free arm around her waist to pull her flush against him, bringing their lips together in a soft kiss. So light the touch was barely even there at first, before Tifa sighed into him and wound her arms around his neck to pull him in closer. Still, unhurried. Easy. It still made Cloud’s head spin.

When they pulled back, Tifa rested her head against his shoulder. She stifled a yawn into his shirt.

His hand smoothed up and down her back. “Past your bedtime, huh?” he murmured.

Tifa smiled into the crook of his neck. “Guess it is,” she mumbled. She drew back. “Past yours, too. You have the early shift at the gym tomorrow, remember?”

“So’ve you,” Cloud countered. 

Tifa groaned. “I might die,” she admitted. “I also might fall asleep on the walk home.”

Concern creased Cloud’s brow. “You can’t walk home this late on your own,” he insisted. He knew he’d lose the argument, but it was worth a try.

“I’ve done it for years. Besides, I can take care of myself,” Tifa reminded him.

He sighed. “I know. It’s just…” he trailed off, running a frustrated hand through his hair. Sometimes the right words wouldn’t come to him, tangling on the tip of his tongue, and it was better for him to say nothing at all.

“I’ve seen you go on your late-night strolls around here too,” Tifa said. “It’s pretty safe for me if you’re okay, too.”

Cloud rubbed the back of his neck. “Can’t sleep sometimes,” he admitted. “A lot.”

Tifa nodded. She stretched until her back cracked and stifled another yawn behind her hand. “It’s sweet of you to worry,” she said. “C’mon. Help me with the chairs?”

“Sure.”

He turned around after setting the last stool atop the bar to see Tifa rifling through her bag, frowning. “You good?”

She sighed. “Yeah. Well, no. I just realised I gave Marle my keys so she could make a copy of them and I forgot to get them back from her before my shift started. I guess I’ll have to wake her up to get into my apartment. Or break in.”

In the time it took him to put the chairs away, Cloud had found some of the words he needed. “Stay with me,” he blurted out, then his mouth took over while his brain reeled at the bluntness of the statement. “I mean, I- it makes sense. I’m just next door. I can sleep on the couch if you’re not comfortable with-” He cut himself off at the relieved exhale from Tifa.

“Thank you, Cloud,” she said. “Even without the keys, I really do think I’d have fallen asleep on the way home.”

He huffed a soft, amused noise. “C’mon. Let’s go. Before we both collapse.”

Cloud didn’t have much in the way of spare clothing but he found some shorts and a too-small t-shirt to lend to Tifa. He started making his way across to his bedroom but uncertainty nipped at his heels and slowed his footsteps, so he stretched out across his sofa instead. 

Tifa took one look at him and shrugged, instead opting to curl into his side on the sofa. 

She tilted her head to look at the coffee table and hooked a finger around the flower crown, fighting a smile. “This is cute,” she said. “You’ve expanded from bouquets, huh?”

Cloud huffed. “Aerith made it.”

The smile on Tifa’s face turned teasing and she placed it onto Cloud’s head again. “Adorable.”

“Zack said I looked beautiful.”

Her laugh lit up her face and Cloud was powerless to do anything but stare. 

Cloud set the flower crown aside again when the shake of her shoulders receded, a private smile on his face, stifling a yawn behind his hand. 

Tifa nestled her head onto his shoulder. Her breath fanned across his neck and slowed after a few mere minutes. The soft rhythm of exhales puffed into his skin lulled Cloud into dozing off not long after. He slept better than he could ever remember.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a sweet, very cheesy au to write and i enjoyed it a lot. all of your lovely comments on the first part of this series made me want to write more of it. i didn't expect this to turn out as smut and i'm usually an awkward fucker with anything relating to it, so this was new for me. any feedback would be really appreciated! 
> 
> i hope you enjoy it!

Cloud slipped out early that morning to knock on Aerith’s door to ask to borrow a spare toothbrush. He was too tired and content for his hackles to raise at Aerith’s grin and Zack’s sleepy smirk when he mumbled an explanation for its necessity. 

“Thanks again, Cloud,” Tifa repeated for at least the fifth time in the morning over breakfast. “Normally I’d just sleep at the bar.”

He frowned. “You don’t have to,” he said. He set their plates of crumbs in the sink. “Not now, I mean.”

Tifa’s smile was radiant and the kiss she gave him tinged with the bitter aftertaste of cheap coffee. Then she rushed out of his apartment to break into hers to grab her gym gear ahead of their early shift.

Later, Cloud gave Tifa a copy of the spare keys to the shop and his apartment, the intent unspoken but hanging in the air between them.

They didn’t talk about it. Cloud thought maybe they didn’t have to.

* * *

Bright light filtered through the large windows fronting the shop, casting the flower displays in a warm glow. The propped-open door attracted regulars and passers-by inside alike, drawn in by the almost magical serenity that Aerith had managed to cultivate in the middle of the dusty, smoggy slum streets. It was like stepping into another world. It was something of a contrast with Cloud’s scowl. 

Aerith had left him and Zack in charge of the shop while she left early to set up flowers for a corporate party topside - a party that Tifa happened to have been hired to bartend for, too. She’d bade Cloud goodbye with some vague reference to a former slum-dweller who’d gone topside but hadn’t forgotten his roots and used his newfound wealth to hire the sewer rats below for his company’s events. How generous. 

“How long will they be?” There was something of a whine in Zack’s tone. 

Cloud finished wrapping a bouquet for a customer and accepted the gil for it with a murmur of thanks. “Aerith shouldn’t be long. These kinds of things take her a couple hours to set up then she’s done. Tifa’s there until whenever this ends, though. She’s bartending, remember?”

Zack whistled. “Damn. She works way too much. At least these topside gigs pay well, right?”

“Not as well as you’d think.”

Zack scoffed. “‘Course they don’t.” He pushed off from the counter and set about prowling around the aisles to pluck out flowers for arrangements as he was wont to do when he needed to think, humming an idle tune to himself in a manner that suggested to Cloud that he was planning something. It didn’t bode well. The last grand idea he’d had while thinking during a shift at the shop had ended in near-broken bones, a crashed motorbike, and a week of silent treatment.

Just as Cloud thought to ask what he was planning, Aerith burst through the door and sprinted through to the back of the shop. She still greeted her regulars with her beaming smile as she passed. She returned with an armful of flowers that she all but threw onto the counter in front of Cloud. “Hey. I’ve got like five minutes before I have to leave again; there’s been a daffodil emergency in Sector 5. Can you wrap these for me? Thanks! You’re the best, Cloud!” She barrelled upstairs towards her apartment, an unchecked force of chaos in a floaty pink dress.

Out of the corner of his eye, Cloud caught sight of Zack’s dopey expression as he watched Aerith’s receding back and the flowers in his hands. He rolled his eyes and reached for the flowers that she'd dumped in front of him. At least some things didn’t change.

* * *

 **Jules:** You and Tifa aren’t working tomorrow. Zack and Biggs are covering for you. They’ve been avoiding the early shift and it’s their turns to suffer

Cloud exhaled in palpable relief and texted Tifa, who would be halfway through a gruelling shift serving topside pricks and might try to fall asleep on the train if she thought she wouldn’t get a significant amount of rest before the early shift at the gym in the morning. 

He cast his mind back to the night before, when he wandered across to the bar just after closing time to help Tifa and Jessie close up. Even though he spent most of his time there just trying to ignore Jessie tormenting him, the tired, grateful smile on Tifa’s face when she spotted him from the other side of the bar had told him he’d made the right decision.

Maybe not all of Zack’s grand ideas were so terrible. Not that Cloud would ever tell him that.

* * *

The key clicking in the lock roused Cloud from his doze. He rubbed his eyes and set the cooled cup of tea in his hands aside before it spilled. He sat up, propped up against the arm of the sofa, as Tifa locked the door behind her.

“Hey. I told you not to wait up,” she said, no bite to her voice. She crossed the darkened room like a ghost, with her soft smile lit up in the glow of a lamp in the corner, and sat on the opposite end of the sofa to him. She tucked her legs under herself as she turned to face him.

“Was asleep, kinda,” Cloud admitted.

Familiar guilt flashed across Tifa’s face.

He hastened to rectify it. “I’d usually be up at this time of night anyway. Don’t worry about it.”

“Still. Sorry,” Tifa murmured.

“Don’t be,” Cloud repeated. He could have come out with something about how her being here was worth all the lost sleep, but instead he just reached across the sofa for her to come closer to him.

Tifa understood and shifted, crawling over him so their bodies were flush together. 

Cloud tilted his head up to catch her lips. They kissed once, twice; somewhat sour from sleep but Cloud lost himself in it nonetheless. When he drew back, Tifa rested her forehead against his. The trace of worry and guilt from her face had disappeared as intended. All of his earlier exhaustion had vanished with the trail of Tifa’s fingertip over his bicep and the warmth of their torsos pressed together. 

Their lips hovered a mere breath away from each other. Tifa’s breath fanned across his face. 

Cloud’s skin burned where they touched. He tilted his head and waited, asking. A now-familiar prelude.

There wasn’t an ounce of resistance in how Tifa crashed back into him, nipping his lower lip. That was his answer.

He obliged and opened his mouth to deepen the kiss, breathing in Tifa’s soft noise as she pressed even closer to him. Her fingers tangled in the soft hairs at the nape of his neck.

He shifted against the arm of the sofa so he sat more upright, sighing into the kiss at the drag of Tifa’s hips over his that the movement caused, bracing his hands against her thighs. Cloud thumbed at the hem of her shorts but changed his mind, instead wrapping his arms around her. No need to get ahead of himself. They were pressed so close that he felt the heave of Tifa’s chest against his, almost one entity in the quiet of the late night.

When Cloud pulled back, it was only to draw in a sharp breath and duck to Tifa’s neck, peppering the pale, exposed skin with open-mouthed kisses. A sensitive spot under her ear made her gasp and he trailed down towards her collarbone, loosening his arms just enough to get in closer, unwilling to allow an inch of unnecessary space between them.

“Cloud,” Tifa murmured. The tug of her fingers in his hair coaxed his head back up to meet his gaze.

Tifa like this might have been the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen; breathing heavy, parted lips, gasping for breath, eyes dark and hooded. Their breaths mingled in the space between them. She pulled back and sat back on her haunches across his lap.

Cloud missed the warmth of her at once. His brain short-circuited when Tifa reached for the hem of his shirt, her thumbs smoothing over his hip bones. “Is this okay?” she asked.

It was more than okay. _Gods._

He nodded, unable to focus on anything other than the dance of Tifa’s fingertips over the bare skin of his midriff. “It’s okay,” he managed, his voice low and strangled through his heavy breathing. 

Tifa pulled his shirt off over his head and flung it somewhere in his dimly-lit apartment, pressing back in the second it was gone to trail feather-light kisses along his chest and up his neck before Cloud had a chance to do anything but lean back against the arm of the sofa. 

Cloud groaned, unable to fight the rise of his hips against Tifa’s and unable to focus on anything but the hot heat of her mouth against his skin. On anything but the twitch of his stomach muscles against her capable hands. On anything but the sharp heat coiling and building in the pit of his stomach. When he gathered some modicum of conscious thought, he sat upright abruptly enough to jostle Tifa from his neck. He used the moment of uncertainty to flip their positions, pushing her across and down into the cool leather of the sofa. Careful not to rest his full weight on her, propping himself up on his elbows, Cloud brought their lips back together in a deep, searing kiss. 

Their hips ground together, finding a slow rhythm, and Cloud drank in Tifa’s high-pitched moan. 

Eventually, he was unable to ignore the ache in his arms from holding up his weight, or the sticky heat of the sofa’s leather against his bare skin, or the crick in his neck. Cloud drew back, panting, and almost went to hell with it right there at the sight of Tifa catching her breath, lips parted and swollen, hair tousled from his hands.

He managed, “My bed’ll be comfier.”

Tifa swallowed and nodded. “Yeah.” She loosened her grip on him enough to allow him to stand but pulled him back into a desperate kiss as soon as she rose to her feet.

Cloud staggered backwards a few steps, his arms reaching blindly for the walls or _anything_ to give an indication that they were heading in the right direction before he lost himself in Tifa again. He gave up and hoisted Tifa up into his arms, chuckling in a strained and strangled way at the surprised yelp it drew from her.

They made it down the hall to his room without breaking any objects or bones - Cloud didn’t even want to think of trying to explain away a concussion or something with them in their current states - and their movements possessed a renewed urgency.

He tugged Tifa’s shirt off over her head, discarding it somewhere in his dark bedroom like she’d done to his in the living room, and surged forward to press hot, open-mouthed kisses down her neck. He took the sighs and sharp breaths as encouragement and trailed down her shoulder towards the curve of her breasts, hesitating and fumbling with the clasp.

Tifa chuckled, low and breathy. She moved his hands to undo the clasp and discarded the bra, perching on the edge of his bed and tilting her head to catch his lips as he leant over her.

They edged backwards onto the bed, ending up sprawled across the sheets at an odd diagonal angle, but Cloud barely gave it a moment’s thought before he ducked back down towards Tifa’s chest again, licking and sucking, guided by the rising pitch of her voice and the increasing pressure of her fingers in his hair. 

Cloud pulled back and looked up at her. “Are you okay with this?” he murmured.

Tifa gave him an encouraging smile and nodded, playing with his tousled spikes. He closed his eyes at the gentle touch, leaning into it. “Are you?” 

He swallowed hard. It wasn’t going to take much for him at this point. He nodded.

She shifted up the bed again so she could lean back into his pillow, drawing their mouths back together. All the while, her hands ghosted across his sides and towards his jeans, unbuttoning them and helping him push them half off. Her hands drifted elsewhere, stroking him through his underwear at first and then- her light touch made his brain short-circuit all over again.

All thoughts of discarding his remaining clothing vanished. Cloud drew in a strangled breath as her hand continued its work, his eyes screwing shut and groaning through gritted teeth. He buried his head into her neck. He was close already. Too close.

“Tifa,” he gasped. “Wait.”

Tifa paused, threading her clean hand into his hair as he pulled back to look at her. Concern clouded her vision. “Is everything okay, Cloud?”

“Yeah,” he managed. The breath he took shook and he swallowed. “Just… let me.”

She bit her lip and nodded. “Okay,” she said, and pulled him back down into a slower, deep kiss. 

He cleared his head enough to continue exactly as he’d intended. His hands worked to push her shorts and underwear down and off, forgotten elsewhere with the rest of their clothing, all the while he scrambled to kick off the jeans bunched around his knees.

Cloud trailed kisses down her neck as before, pausing to suck at the sensitive spot under her ear again for Tifa’s sharp intake of breath. He ghosted kisses across her collarbones and down across her breasts, again pausing there for the moans it drew from her and the tightening of her fingers in his hair. He continued down, trailing kisses across the press of her stomach muscles, feeling them tense underneath the gentle touch.

He looked up and saw the realisation of his plans dawn on Tifa’s face as she looked down at him through heavy, hooded eyes. It shot heat right through him. He attempted to forget about it and peppered kisses up and along her inner thigh. 

Tifa gasped when his lips pressed to sensitive skin, her hips rising into his mouth. Cloud moved slowly at first. Lightly. His hands reached to steady her hips just as his tongue began to circle her clit, met with a moan. 

He found a rhythm, guided by the rise and fall of her hips against his hands and the noises she made - of the moans of his name. He ground his hips further into the bed to relieve some of the tension building in the pit of his stomach and continued. Cloud shifted his weight forward when the pitch of her moans and the twitches of her hips grew more desperate, locking his arms around her thighs and pressing in closer. 

Tifa came with a cry of his name and tensed up before breaking apart, trembling and writhing. Cloud coaxed her through it, slowing down and easing off when the movement stopped. She relaxed in his grip.

Her hand threaded back into his hair and tugged him upwards. Tifa cast him a lazy, contented smile and pulled him in for another kiss, slow and deep. Like they had all the time in the world. Cloud almost lost himself in it. 

_Almost_ being key. That he had something left to take care of was still very much evident.

Tifa hadn’t forgotten, though. Her hand blazed a pathway down his abdomen, setting his skin on fire as her fingertips smoothed across the muscles there. 

Cloud let out a strangled gasp when her hand stroked him again, pulling her back into a more desperate kiss. He couldn’t control the twitch of his hips against her touch and it was no time at all before he followed her over the edge, his entire body shaking and tensing, centred on the touch of her hand. 

Finally spent, Cloud swallowed hard before he opened his eyes, feeling as if he could just collapse into a boneless heap. His breath came in short, jagged pants. He pressed a kiss to Tifa's lips, threading his fingers through her hair to hold her there for a second in the moment. When he felt as if he could move again, he padded over to the bathroom to clean up. 

Cloud had almost dozed off again by the time Tifa returned from her shower, her hair still damp at its roots but tied back from her face. She stifled a yawn and stretched out next to him, resting her head on his shoulder as she was wont to do, and curled her free hand over his shoulder. Her breathing evened out in no time at all.

The weight of sleep on Cloud’s eyes made him drift off soon after pressing a kiss to the top of Tifa’s head. He hadn’t had his problems with insomnia in a long time. 

* * *

Cloud was a creature of habit. Tifa’s presence had changed things, sure, but he fell back into a new routine soon enough. They weren’t earth-shattering, huge changes - rather, it was the kind of subtle change that crept up on a person until they realised their life was almost completely different to a few months prior. So seemingly inconsequential that someone might miss it, had they not known what to look for in it. 

Cloud knew. 

He saw it in Tifa’s clothes in his apartment, folded neatly next to his meagre belongings. In the decent food in the fridge because he remembered to buy it if it wasn’t just him around the apartment. In the smell of cooking, in the piano music CDs that drowned out the music from the bar next door on an evening. Above all, he saw it in _Tifa;_ in her familiar presence, in that private smile she cast him or squeezed his hand when words weren’t enough. In the way she drifted between bar patrons, talking, laughing, pouring drinks and cooking almost all at once - such a natural in her element that all Cloud could do was sit back and stare.

Some things, though, didn’t change.

The smell of burning drifted through into Cloud’s bedroom. He’d contemplated just rolling over and going back to sleep at the first sounds of disturbances in his kitchen, but _that_ caught his attention. He shifted, careful not to jostle Tifa - so at peace and deserving of a lie in, having slipped into Cloud’s apartment at around four in the morning - and padded through to his kitchen.

As suspected, Aerith was rummaging through his kitchen cupboards. “Morning!” she enthused. “You want pancakes?”

Cloud leant against his counter and rubbed his eyes. “Sure,” he said. “Why are you here, though?”

“Oh, we ran out of flour so I thought I’d check here before we ran to the store,” Aerith said, procuring the bag of flour from the baking supplies he’d somehow acquired - another subtle change, maybe. “I used mine making bread.”

That was it. “That’s a different kind of flour, Aerith.”

Aerith paused. “That might explain the explosion.”

Cloud sighed.

“Zack fixed it! I think. Anyway, it’s gonna be fine. The pancakes will be ready in half an hour! I got the syrup that Tifa likes. See you!” Aerith darted out of Cloud’s apartment with her stolen goods. The door slammed shut behind her.

A familiar warm hand ghosted across Cloud’s side and Tifa’s chin rested on his shoulder. “How’d she know I was here?”

“Guess you’re here a lot. She knows things.”

He felt Tifa’s smile into the skin of the crook of his neck. “I guess so.” She stepped back, leaving a warm imprint of her body on his back. “I think I should take over breakfast before they burn down the shop.”

“It’s your day off,” Cloud protested.

“Would you rather move apartments?”

Cloud paused, weighing up his options. “Fair point.”

Tifa smiled. “C’mon. Let’s go.” She made her way to the door and held it open for Cloud to follow her through, but faltered when she turned to glance at him over her shoulder and realised he was still standing in the kitchen, his expression thoughtful. “Hey, Cloud? You okay?" The door fell closed again. 

“Yeah. Just thinking.” He pushed off from the counter and crossed the space between them.

She tilted her head. “About what?”

Cloud paused, considering his words. He chewed his lip. “Just how things are different,” he said finally.

“In a good way?”

“Yeah.” Not a second’s hesitation.

Tifa smiled and tilted her head up to press a kiss to his cheek. "That's all that matters, then." She grabbed two of his fingers to pull him across to Zack and Aerith’s apartment, into the mess of noise and bickering. Cloud didn’t resist, though he could have broken her loose grip on him with a mere twitch. He didn’t need to. He didn’t _want_ to.

It felt like a home now, he realised. Cloud had left home behind years ago as a hotheaded kid with big ideas of an even bigger city that ended up working odd jobs in the slums of Midgar. He hadn't expected to find one again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've got some longer stuff in the works right now, namely a kind of canon-compliant character study for tifa that i expect will be a slightly longer work. thank you very much for reading!
> 
> catch me on tumblr at fangvanguard referring to cloud as my son all of the time


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